by Jasmin Quinn
Then he laughed, wickedly. She brought her head up and looked into his eyes, startled. “Wicked selfish girl,” he growled as he rolled her off him, flipped her over onto her stomach and then forced her up on her hands and knees. “You don’t get to use my body for your own selfish pleasures and think you can just fall asleep. You have unfinished business.” And then he entered her hard from behind, pulling her ass towards him at the same time, so that his cock drove deep into her pussy in one swift thrust.
He heard her gasp, he wasn’t hurting her, he was turning her on, again. She reached her fingers toward her clit, but he didn’t want that, not yet. He let her have control, now he wanted it back. He forced her head and shoulders down onto the mattress, pulling her wrists over her head. “No touching, not yet,” he said. “Keep your hands over your head.”
She did as she was told, arms and hands stretched overhead, her fingers grabbing at the sheet, using it to brace herself. She moaned as he thrust into her from behind, her pussy, wet and dripping, pumping back at him. “Dean, please,” she begged him breathlessly, “please.” He reached down with a finger, drew it across her wet vulva and then rubbed it across her clit, feather light, almost barely there, and grunted in satisfaction as she bucked her ass futilely trying to get him to apply more pressure. He felt his cock expand, his balls tighten as he watched her beautiful ass bucking underneath.
“Fuck, Kelsie,” he grunted. She was going to make him come too soon. He tried to slow his thrusts, regain a little control. He dropped his hand away from her clit, brought it back up to her ass grabbing it hard with his fingers. She cried out in frustration and called him a bastard. Fingers still moist, he ran them down the crack of her ass, circling her asshole, forcing his thumb into it, just up to the knuckle.
“Dean,” Kelsie gasped as she bucked under him. “Oh my god.”
“Finish yourself, Kelsie,” he grunted as shifted his attention from her ass, grabbing her by the hips with both hands, and slamming his cock into her.
He was dimly aware of her moving her hand to her pussy, working her clit, bringing herself to orgasm as he thrust harder and harder into her until he couldn’t control himself any longer. He felt his balls tighten as an intense primal hunger rolled over him, bolting from his brain, down his spine and out through his cock as he came harder than he had ever come in his life.
Chapter Thirty-Five
They sat together in her large jetted tub eating nearly melted ice cream. She was leaning on him, her back against his chest, his legs splayed open so she could settle between them with her ass. He held the small Ben and Jerry’s ice cream tub in one hand, a spoon in the other, scooping out a bite and feeding it to Kelsie. “Who the fuck eats ice cream in the winter?” he asked playfully.
“Pregnant women I guess,” she said as she swallowed it down. “Another please.”
“You are so fucking demanding, aren’t you?” he teased as he spooned another bite into her mouth.
“I’m not.” She twisted her head, looking into his smiling eyes. “I promise, I’m not.”
Then silence settled on them. He dropped the spoon in the ice cream tub and tossed it like a basketball toward the garbage can by the toilet. He missed.
Kelsie shifted her body around pulling herself onto his lap. She wrapped her arms around his chest dropping her head to his heart. He felt his heart pick up speed and he tightened his arms around her, wanting her as close to him as he could get her. They stayed that way letting the moment settle around them.
“You found me pretty easily,” Kelsie said at last.
“Not that easily.” He lied, not wanting her to know how easy it was to follow her trail. “But I’m good at my job. And I know someone who can hide you better than this.”
He heard the tremor in her voice as she said, “I thought I was never going to see you again. I thought they were going to kill you.
Dean ran his hand up the length of her arm. “I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I was in bad shape when I was extracted. It took this long for me to get back on my feet, get back into fighting shape.”
She ran her fingers through his chest hair, circling his nipple, pinching it. Dean grabbed her hand. “Don’t do that Kelsie. Or we’ll never have this talk.”
She looked at him, smiling impishly. He could see that she was perversely pleased at how easy she could get his… attention. But she stilled her hand, pulling back from him. “I’m hungry. Baby’s got to eat.”
She got out of the tub, grabbing a towel and running it over her lucious body, completely unaware of how sexy she was. She pulled a warm housecoat off a hook and wrapped it around her. She grinned back at him as she saw him watching her. “I have apples, some cabbage salad, some canned clams.”
He grimaced. “Tell me you’re kidding me.
“I am not kidding you.” Her eyes sparkled with mirth.
“Does this town have a place that delivers?”
Kelsie smiled at him as she shook her head. “Stay put, I’ll rustle us up something.” And then she left the bathroom, left him to his thoughts.
Later, they sat across from each other, on the floor in the living room, eating scrambled eggs and toast off plates on the coffee table. Dean had started a fire in the fireplace and they turned the lights off letting the warm glow of the flames stroke them. Dean took a bite of the over-buttered toast and thought at least it wasn’t clams.
“Can you cook?” he asked Kelsie.
She shrugged as she poked at her eggs with her fork.
“Me neither,” he laughed, realizing that he really didn’t know this woman all that well, that she knew even less about him. She knew him well enough though, he thought as he took a sip of the bourbon she had poured for him. “You just happen to have this on hand?”
She nodded. “In case you came back.”
He put down the toast and looked across the table at her. “I bet the baby was a surprise.”
“I told the doctor that it wasn’t possible, that I couldn’t have children.” She chuckled. “You should have seen him, it was like I insulted his entire profession. He wanted my medical records. I said no.”
“How’d he take that?”
Kelsie took a small bite of egg. “He made me go through a whole bunch of tests, then said that yes, the odds were against me, but there was a slim chance I could get pregnant. I told him that was such good news.”
Dean chuckled softly as the silence stretched between them. This shouldn’t be awkward, he thought as he looked across the coffee table at Kelsie. She was toying with her eggs, not really eating them, her eyes looking down, her beautiful eyelashes fanning across her cheeks. Why was this awkward?
He reached across the table and took her chin gently in his hand, watching her eyes as she looked up at him, looked into his eyes.
“Kelsie,” Dean said gently. “Tell me you love me.”
He saw the sudden sheen of tears in her eyes and knew at that moment that he was not going to leave her, that this wasn’t goodbye. Whatever the future held for him, Kelsie and their baby would part of it. Mr. Jackman would either accept it or lose him. There was no in-between.
“You’re a lunatic, Dean,” she smiled softly, a few tears slipping down her cheeks. “But I do love you.” Then she sniffled. “God knows why though.”
He grinned at her as he brought both of his hands to her face, gently wiping her tears with his thumbs. “I love you too, Kelsie,” he said, and then added, “God knows why.”
THE END
Excerpt from Secrets Inside Her – Book Two of Running with the Devil
Finn McQueen, the cop featured in The Darkest Hour, is back and is thrust into the middle of Mr. Jackman’s feud with Rusya Savisin thanks to Kelsie Scott, who shares Finn’s name with Nika Petrova, Jackman’s most valuable asset. The Russian’s have found out that Nika is in Vancouver, alone and unprotected. Nika reaches out to Finn for help.
Nika slumped down in the backseat of Finn McQueen’s SUV. She crossed her arms over her c
hest and sat behind Finn, so he would really have to strain if he wanted to look directly at her. As he slid in, he leaned over and opened the glove compartment, dropping the gun she gave him into it. “Lock the doors,” she demanded as he straightened up. He gazed at her through the rear-view mirror.
“I’m being patient with you because you’re obviously afraid and running from someone. But you’re in my car and under my rules now. If you want me to do something for you, try saying please.”
Nika furrowed her eyebrows at him, glaring into the dark brown eyes that were looking back at her through the mirror. “If you don’t lock the car doors, and they find me, then they will kill us both.”
Finn continued to stare into her eyes, hard and unmoved, until she relented. “Fine,” she snapped, “Please. Finn McQueen, would you please lock the doors.”
Finn threw her a small wry smile. “See that wasn’t so hard was it?” He reached over to the door and flipped a switch. All locks engaged. No one was getting in unless they broke a window.
They sat there in silence for a few minutes, Nika had uncrossed her arms and dropped her hands to her lap, studying them with her eyes. What had she been thinking when she took this vacation? She had lost her sense of caution when Kelsie told her about Vancouver and all it had to offer. And when she told Nika about Finn McQueen, why didn’t Kelsie also tell her how big he was up close? And how good looking? Nika felt an immediate and intense attraction to him; something she’d never felt before in her life. Even the male operatives that she worked with did not make her heart speed up like this Finn did. When she’d pressed the gun into his stomach, there was no give at all. It was like she hit a solid brick wall. She was sure that if she punched him, she would have bruised her knuckles.
And he wasn’t afraid of the gun, which annoyed her. How was she going to maintain control of the situation if the man she needed help from wasn’t afraid to die? She had no other leverage. But he was helping her, off the ferry anyway. She allowed herself a quick peek up with her eyelashes and saw that he was gazing at her through the rear-view mirror. She couldn’t read his expression; his brown eyes were flinty and impassive. Then he said, “Move over to the other side of the seat. I want to be able to look at you while we talk.”
“I don’t want to,” Nika replied stubbornly. She knew in her heart that she was being unreasonable, that if she was going to get back to Mr. Jackman safely, this was the man that would help her. But she’d been through too much the last couple of days to fully trust him. She needed to stay wary and on guard.
“That’s irrelevant,” Finn snapped, she could hear his patience fraying. “My car, my rules. I figure we have,” he paused and looked at his watch, “twenty minutes before the ferry docks. You have that much time to tell me what the fuck is going on or I’ll be driving off alone.”
“Fine,” she snapped back at him as she slid over to the other side of the seat. She crossed her arms again in front of her chest and lowered her chin to her chest so it was hard for Finn to get a good look at her. He turned in his seat so that his back was almost pressed up against the driver’s side door and he could see her without straining too much. She didn’t look up to see what he was doing, just kept her head lowered. He said nothing for a few minutes, but she could tell he was studying her. She could feel herself losing this war of patience with him. Maybe it was his cop’s experience, but she thought it was more than that. it was like he was born with instincts that helped him to know what he needed to do to handle her and he was waiting to see how long it would take for her to bend to his will.
It didn’t take long. Nika folded first, in part, because he didn’t seem like he was bluffing when he said that he would kick her out of his car. But also, because she had no one else to turn to and Kelsie said he would help her if she was in trouble. “What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Let’s start with your name.”
“It’s Eleanor Foster.”
Finn sighed heavily. “Your real name.” Nika mulled this over. Eleanor Foster had been the name she used to book her flights, her hotel room. She’d liked the sound of it, thought it sounded mature and even elegant. And she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone her real name.
She glanced up at him, startling at her emotional reaction as she looked into his dark, brown eyes. “How do you know it’s not?”
Finn scowled at her, impatience in his eyes. He brought his arm up and pointed to his watch “You’re wasting time. “
“Fine!” She glared at him – she was about to break Mr. Jackman’s rules and she’d never done that before. She didn’t know the consequences, had no practical experience regarding the judicious use of real and fake information. She had to trust this Finn. Had to believe he would protect her. “My name is Nika Petrova.”
“You’re Russian.”
She nodded. “Yes. What else should I tell you?”
Finn didn’t immediately answer; his eyes raked over her, assessing her. She watched as his gaze shifted from her face to her breasts to her waist and lower. And as his eyes roamed over her, they seemed to lose focus, grow darker. She felt a heat in her belly and she shivered in response to him. She didn’t understand her reaction, could not figure out how a single look could elicit such a physical reaction. She’d been looked at by men before, but never had their looks caused a such a yearning in her. Then as Finn looked back to Nika’s face, his eyes cleared.
“Just tell me what’s going on. Why you’re running for your life and who you’re running from?”
The sudden shift of Finn’s attention back to the matter at hand helped to steady Nika’s heart. She dropped her hands to her lap and leaned forward towards Finn, gazing intensely into his eyes. “If I tell you, I am breaking the rules of my organization. I don’t know what they will do to me if they find out. I might never be able to go back.”
“Nika, how can I help you if you don’t tell me?” She saw a flash of heat in Finn’s eyes and then a mask of professional impassivity fell into place.
“You’re right,” she nodded. “Kelsie said you could be trusted. You must not tell anyone.”
“I can’t promise you anything until I hear your story.”
Nike took a small breath. “Okay, here is as much as I can say. I work for an organization.”
“What organization?”
Nika plucked at the sleeve of her coat with her fingers. “I can’t tell you,” she whispered.
“Okay. We’ll park that for now. Keep talking.”
“I have worked for this organisation for… well this will be my 12th year.”
“You’ve worked for 12 years?” Finn repeated, a hint of skepticism in his voice. “How old were you when you started?”
“I was 11.”
“What?” Finn growled. “What the fuck is going on? What kind of work does an 11-year old Russian girl do… ?” His voice trailed off in confusion, then understanding dawned in his eyes followed closely by outrage and disgust. When she didn’t immediately answer, he gruffly asked, “Nika, what exactly do you do?”
She shook her head, her eyes staring into his, steady and solemn. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Did someone buy you to use you?”
Nika’s eyes widened with surprise and confusion. “How did you know that?” she whispered.
Look for Secrets Inside Her – Book Two of Running with the Devil, coming March 2018!
Acknowledgments
I’m grateful to Jem Monday Publishing Inc. for taking me on and supporting me through the writing and publishing process.
A huge thanks to my good friend, Nikita Slater, author of not-for-the-faint-of-heart dark romance, for her support, advice and editing skills. And to Marley Beckett Ross, clean and funny romance author, for her willingness to procrastinate with me by drinking red wine and eating fish tacos.
Finally, my thanks to Drew at IDrewThis, who created the amazing cover for The Darkest Hour and formatted the book for me.
Love, Jasmin
; About Jasmin
Jasmin loves reading and writing highly erotic romance novels with strong male and female characters. Jasmin tries not to take herself too seriously, but some things matter to her – like good manners, compassion for humans and animals alike, and Canadian maple syrup on vanilla ice cream. She generally disregards other people’s opinions of her unless they’re complimentary, in which case she fully embraces them.
About this Series
RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL
Jasmin Quinn’s book series, Running with the Devil, revolves around a secret organization headed by Mr. Jackman, a mysterious man with a grudge against Russian mob boss, Rusya Savisin and his associate, Randall Scott, a highly connected psychopath.
Each book in the series tells the story of one of Jackman’s operatives as they grapple with a traitor in their midst while trying to keep their eyes on the prize – bringing Rusya Savisin to his knees.
As the series unfolds, more and more will be revealed about the feud between Jackman and Savisin, including answers to the following questions:
Are Jackman’s intentions honourable or does he have as much blood on his hands as Savison?
What is Jackman’s mysterious relationship with Kelsie Scott and why does he dislike her so much?